India's R&D spending remains 0.7% of GDP in decade

New Delhi, July 22 (IANS) Indias spending on Research and Development (R&D) as a percentage of GDP has remained at 0.7 per cent over a decade, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday. This is much lower compared to 4.3 per cent in Israel, 2 per cent in China and 1.2 per cent in Brazil. Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank' said in a written reply that the low investment by the private sector was one of the reasons for the low investment in R&D. "One of the reasons is less investment by the private sector on R&D, which accounts for 65-75 per cent of the total R&D investment in most technologically advanced countries of the world as compared to only about 30 per cent in India," he added. He said that though the country's investment in R&D had tripled in the last decade, its size as a percentage of GDP had remained at 0.7 per cent. "As per latest R&D Statistics released by the National Science and Technology Management Information System (NSTMIS) of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), R&D expenditure in India tripled from 2004-05 to 2014-15," he said.
--IANS pgs/mr